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Strong encryption for all

Valentin Gibello

28 January 2018

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The debate surrounding encryption raises concerns over the future of privacy and confidentiality of communications, both fundamental rights enshrined in the EU Charter of 2000. The current reforms of law enforcement and ePrivacy rules should forbid any attempt at weakening encryption.

Time horizon

May 2018

Desirability

Opportunity

As strong end-to-end encryption becomes increasingly more accessible to citizens, the current legislative reforms in the domain of ICT, such as the revision of the ePrivacy Diretive, is the opportunity to enshrine in European law the right to encryption.

Certification schemes, encouraged by the European Commission for cybersecurity and personal data protection, should serve as evidence that the certified entity supports and implements encryption of data.

Challenge

The outcry on data collection practices of US and European intelligence agencies, and repeated data breaches and abuses of private companies rekindled the debate over privacy in ICT. At the same time, the social pressure exerted by terrorist threats led to the widespread adoption of privacy-intrusive legislation.

At the crossroad of these issues, encryption techniques are being pointed at by law enforcement and some public bodies for preventing criminal investigations, and the legal framework surrounding their use is currently vigorously debated.

However, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights protects the confidentiality of communications as well as the right to privacy, and encryption is a necessary tool to ensure this protection in the digital realm.